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8Next he restored Commagene to Antiochus, since Gaius, though he had himself given him the district, had taken it away again; and Mithridates the Iberian, whom Gaius had summoned and imprisoned, was sent home again to resume his throne. 2To another Mithridates, a lineal descendant of Mithridates the Great, he granted Bosporus, giving to Polemon some land in Cilicia in place of it. He enlarged the domain of Agrippa of Palestine, who, happening to be in Rome, had helped him to become emperor, and bestowed on him the rank of consul; 3and to his brother Herod he gave the rank of praetor and a principality. And he permitted them to enter the senate and to express their thanks to him in Greek.
4The acts I have named, now, were the acts of Claudius himself, and they were praised by everybody; but certain other things were done at this time of quite a different nature by his freedmen and by his wife Valeria Messalina. 5The latter became enraged at her niece Julia because she neither paid her honour nor flattered her; and she was also jealous because the girl was extremely beautiful and was often alone with Claudius. Accordingly, she secured her banishment by trumping up various charges against her, including that of adultery (for which Annaeus Seneca was also exiled), and not long afterward even compassed her death. 6The freedmen, on their part, persuaded Claudius to accept the ornamenta triumphalia for his exploits in Mauretania, though he had not gained any success and had not yet come to the throne when the war was finished. 7This same year, however, Sulpicius Galba overcame the Chatti, and Publius Gabinius conquered the Cauchi and as a crowning achievement recovered a military eagle, the only one that still remained in the hands of the enemy from Varus’ disaster. Thanks to the exploits of these two men Claudius now received the well-merited title of imperator.
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